Spider dreams
by Jem Doe
Summary: Spiders dream of mostly nothing, black ink and black skies.


**I use it/its pronouns for widowmaker here bc she's considered a weapon of Talon, and weapons have no need for gender.**

* * *

Spiders dream of mostly nothing, black ink and black skies, or so thinks - it. It is nothing. It is a weapon. It was something before, but it doesn't remember. The fog, it knows, it's too thick, and if it tries to gun the fog down, it breaks down, a puppet cut out of its strings, and pain is all it knows until its handler fixes its strings.

It doesn't try anymore to get rid of the fog.

Sometimes, it - _Widowmaker_ , they call it, hushed whispers and the dead tone of scientists analyzing its brain after a mission - thinks it might have been a person, a long time ago. Sometimes, while watching its targets, it remembers something. It bothers its mind like a thin needle poking a nail bed, and at night, when it rests, it remembers. It comes to its mind in dream fragments, a man's soft smile and warmth in its skin. It might have been a person, not a weapon, but it doesn't know for sure. How can it have been a person? Spiders don't feel, persons do, and it doesn't feel - so it must be a spider.

Sometimes, it hears something through the fog of its mind. A woman, sobbing quietly, gently. It is not sure how it should react. It doesn't mention anything to its handlers, although - it thinks that it might be a secret better hidden. It is not sure why.

Sombra - _I can hack anything,_ she says, once - looks at it like a challenge. It doesn't mind; what can she hack? Its brain? It has nothing to be hacked.

Until it has, of course - she meets Sombra in a dream, the girl's black eyes staring at her. The only point of colour was Sombra's violet net of light, giving the fog an odd, purplish tone. It's pretty.

It looks at Sombra.

"You shouldn't be here.", it says, and Sombra offers a smirk. "It's a _dream_."

"Anything can be hacked, and everyone, too.", she replies. It blinks, slowly, one eye at a time, and Sombra's momentaneous confusion is enough to know it did something wrong.

"I'm not anyone.", it sits down, even though there is no floor. There is also no ceiling, and no walls, just the thick, impossible fog, and the clearing they're currently on, made of black ink. The logic of a dream, it supposes, is that there is none at all.

"Of course you are. You're _Widowmaker_.", Sombra sits down, something it cannot put a name on dripping from Sombra's voice, and purple bathes the world. It wonders how she came down her head.

"I'm a weapon. I'm no one.", it blinks, both eyes at the same time, now. Something happens on Sombra's face, but it cannot read emotions as well as - before, it guesses. "You shouldn't be here."

"I was curious to see how _this_ happened,", Sombra rises up, gesturing to the fog and touching it, going elbow deep in there, like it was soft. It puts a hand - purple, too, even if not the same hue, more tinted to blue. It's not a colour seen on her targets' skin, usually. It had heard that its heartbeat, when it was slown down, made its skin purple - to its head. A thin needle pokes a nail bed.

Sombra pulls up something. It's an image - a man, smiling. It doesn't recognize him.

"Ooh, who _is_ he?", Sombra asks, and it can offer no answers. She notices, too, because she puts the image back. "Ah, not like you'd remember, hm."

"How are you here?", it asks, its gun safely on its arms, cradled like a baby. Dream logic, at its best.

The woman who lives in her mind softly sobs. Sombra faces the fog.

"Anything can be hacked, and everyone,", Sombra hums, repeating herself, opening a passage through the fog somehow. The woman's sobs grow louder, but still in the same, melodic gentleness. The needle keeps prodding. "You have chips on your brain. Probably for checking your brain patterns, something like that. It was just a matter of typing a few things in, and _voilá_."

Sombra expects something, turning her head to face it, but it can't be sure of what - so it offers a blank look, instead. Sombra huffs and keeps moving, and it follows.

The fog makes a purple hallway, filled with pictures. They're the same fragments it sees, once in a while, in a dream, pulled in by the woman.

"Your head is creepy, Widow.", Sombra stops, pulling in a photograph of people she could have recognized, once. Two women, three men, a child, the same man from before.

"The dude from before, huh? Did you have a crush, Widow?", Sombra hums. It leans in, analyzing the man's face. It's a familiar sort of face, soft and sweet. He was gentle. He was kind. He had to die.

The needle digs deeper. It looks away, to the dark hall where the woman's sobbing comes from.

"I think I killed him,", it says, in the end.

"That's how you deal with a crush, Widow? _Díos mio,_ ", Sombra says, putting the photograph back. The needle recedes, and they go on.

Sombra doesn't poke at the fog anymore, yet the pain grows. It is not sure why, and maybe it should tell its handlers.

They arrive, soon enough, in another clearing, where a sobbing woman, covered in blood, is. She is familiar. She is a stranger.

"Huh,", is all Sombra says, and the woman's eyes rise. They're haunted by something, and it can see itself on it. "Didn't know they kept someone inside you, Widow."

The woman does not acknowledge Sombra; instead, she stares at it, dead eyes facing back its own deader eyes.

"Go away. You took everything from me.", she ignores the way Sombra approaches the bloodied woman, analyzing her from every angle as if a thing, not a person.

"Widow, don't be surprised, but I think that may be you,", Sombra says. "A remnant. Ooh, maybe she is the owner of the memories! So, is she you?"

"I wouldn't know.", it replies. The woman sneers.

"Of course I am you. You're me, but if I was a cold-blooded murderer.", the woman snarls. It doesn't react - why would it? "You killed my husband."

Something twitches. It is not sure what.

"He was mine.", it fingers the gun, softly. Something comes to its mind. "My husband, mine to kill. Never yours."

The woman sobs, and it turns around, going back through the path it came from, Sombra on its heels and the woman sobbing gently on the background.

When they arrive at the first clearing, Sombra closes the path, and it sits on the floor, cradling its gun.

"I'd like to wake up,", it tells Sombra, and Sombra disappears, leaving behind her the black ink and the fog on its original hues of grey and black. It wakes up soon after, wetness on its face. Tears? It thought it couldn't cry anymore. How odd.

It rises from its bed, dressing up in the clothes its handlers provide. Simple clothes: jeans and t-shirt, and that's it. Why would a weapon need anything else for its day to day life? Even its room is bare, a bed and a bedside table. There is no window, there are no shelves to put anything on. A room with no strings left behind.

It goes outside, and decides it needs coffee. Small pleasures were left behind, it supposes. It also decides Sombra needs some, as it grabs its own mug, an extra to take to Sombra's room, sipping it quietly through darkened halls. It doesn't knock on Sombra's door - both hands are occupied, after all -, and it finds Sombra awake, typing away on a digital keyboard. She turns her head when she hears the door open, and grins at it.

" _Hola,_ Widow. Busy night for us, hm?", Sombra says, and it approaches, offering silently the coffee mug. "Ooh, nice. _Gracias, araña."_

It nods, and watches as Sombra analyses it, still typing, but now one-handed.

"Don't suppose you want to talk about it, Widow?", Sombra hums.

"No.", it replies, because the woman who sobs in its head is no one's business but its own. Sombra faces the screen once more, lines of indecipherable code showing in soft, glowing white.

"Of course not.", Sombra mutters, before tapping on the code, almost as if pulling something from there. She does, because a wedding picture appears - the man with soft features and the sobbing woman, but she is not sobbing on this photo. "That's the man from your memories, isn't it? Your husband."

"I'd assume it is.", it replies, and Sombra grins.

"You know his name, Widow?", Sombra asks, and it thinks. The man was a target, given to her. It knew its name, but once he was dead, it forgot. Still, it would like to know what the soft man she dreams of occasionally is named. It shook its head, and Sombra's grin grows. "It's Gérard, Widow. I can pull up more information on him, maybe a photograph or two. Do you want that?"

"Sure.", it replies, not sure why. Sombra grins. "Why are you doing this?"

"We're friends, Widow. Friends do favors for each other,", Sombra hums.

"Are we?", it replies. Sombra doesn't answer, and it stares at the man with soft expressions - Gérard. It tests the name on its tongue. It's a familiar name. It should be - he was its husband, when it was a person, not a thing.

"Oh, we are. Just keep that in mind,", Sombra replies. It nods curtly once, and leaves, but stops on the outside of Sombra's room, in the middle of the dark hallway.

"Gérard,", it says, softly, almost inaudible. The name echoes down the hallway, but it just may be not real. It swallows the syllables down its tongue, and does it best to bury it down its head, going on with its day, pretending nothing unusual happened.

Spiders dream of nothing, it replies when asked by its handlers. Spiders dream of impenetrable fog and black ink. It is a lie, however - spiders dream of purple fog and soft purple lights, and memories supposedly gone about a man named Gérard, and who it was before it was a widowmaker. Spiders dream of a hacker's presence running commentaries about her findings. It doesn't mind; it's rather nice to have company inside its lonely dreams.


End file.
